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Vasek Pospisil the hometown hero after winning the deciding Davis Cup match for Canada
VANCOUVER – The fifth and deciding rubber of a Davis Cup tie can be fraught with drama, with all of the winner-take-all, last-chance, do-or-dieness of it all and an entire weekend of tennis battle coming down to a few points in the fifth match, on the third and final day.
Or, it can be like Vasek Pospisil of Canada vs. Go Soeda of Japan on Sunday.
The air went out of the Doug Mitchell Centre after Milos Raonic’s enthralling 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 loss to Japanese No. 1 Kei Nishikori – and much of the crowd went with it.
Mercifully, for both Pospisil and Canada, the 24-year-old hometown hero was merciless in a 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Soeda that took just an hour and 49 minutes, after teammate Raonic had battled over three hours in a losing cause to allow Japan to even the tie at 2-2 and force the fifth match.
With the 3-2 win, Canada advances to the World Group quarter-finals, where it will face Belgium on the road the week after Wimbledon, July 17-19.
A rather pedestrian Belgian team defeated the completely bereft Swiss defending champions, who were without both Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka on the weekend. The Belgians don’t boast a player of the quality of Nishikori; their best is David Goffin, ranked No. 21. And that means the World Group semifinals are looking like a rather legitimate possibility for Canada assuming everyone remains healthy.
Belgian reporter Yves Simon Tweeted late Sunday that the tie would be played on clay, likely in the Flemish part of the country.
“There were a few moments of fatigue, but I had quite a bit in the tank, still. More than anything, yesterday’s (doubles) match was pretty emotionally draining, but I’ve learned a lot from that match. I kind of got down on myself a couple of times. Today I was going at it with the mentality of using the crowd at the right moments, and use my energy when I needed to, which I did really well,” Pospisil said.
“I was really focused on my service games and then, I guess, pounced at the ends of the sets. And then I tried to pounce early in the third because that was a chance to close him out, since I was up two sets.”
It wasn’t easy. Pospisil had to wait. And there were so many ebbs and flows to the Raonic-Nishikori encounter that one minute he had to think he might not even have to play at all, that Raonic would clinch it – and the next minute he had to prepare himself again emotionally to go out and win a deciding fifth rubber.
Pospisil also found out only 10 minutes before the match that the Japanese were substituting Go Soeda, who had played so well in a losing cause in the doubles on Saturday, for Tatsuma Ito.
“It was a difficult position to be in and he handled it really well, like a veteran pro. You want to score the winning goal in overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and as a tennis player you dream of a fifth point,” captain Martin Laurendeau said.
As for Raonic, he produced another superb effort against his higher-ranked Japanese rival though because of the speed of the court and the relative quickness of the rallies – and the lack of the tiebreaks that have become a trademark of matches between the two – it wasn’t a marathon.
“Pretty much the same every time, very competitive. A big fight for the both of us, and just comes down to a few moments here and there. You just try to fight it through and try to make the most of every opportunity,” Raonic said.
Nishikori got the first strike in the fifth set, when he broke Raonic to go up 2-1. But Raonic managed to get it back to even the set at 3-3, breaking his Japanese opponent after Nishikori had been up 40-15 in the game.
At 4-4, Raonic double-faulted to gift Nishikori with another break, the deciding one. If there was a recurring theme this weekend, for both countries, it was definitely double-faults at the most inopportune times. Nishikori then served it out.
“I thought I had (the match), but he broke me back. Mentally it was really tough, especially with these big guys, you’re not supposed to let a break go. it wasn’t easy, but I tried to stay calm and stay tough,” Nishikori said. “I was waiting for one chance, and he gave me a double fault.
“It was a little luck but I think mentally I was really there, and strong, so maybe that’s why he gave me a couple of easy points,” he added.
Nishikori’s record in decisive sets is impressive. According to the ATP, he’s now 11-2 in career five-set matches. And in the last 52 weeks, he leads the Tour with a 21-2 mark in decisive-set matches (three-setters on the regular Tour, five-setters in Grand Slams and Davis Cup).
Raonic said this was the first match between the two that actually featured some shifts in momentum, in contrast to their usual pattern of long, tight sets and tiebreaks.
“These (sets), they were close but other than maybe the third set when there were a lot of opportunities both ways, the sets were pretty straightforward,” Raonic said. “I don’t think I did anything wrong later; he just sort of buckled down, played a few good points, and that sort of decides the whole match. It comes down to one or two moments.
“I’m happy with the way I fought. I’m happy with the way I competed, and that’s all I can ask of myself.”
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